[We hope you’ll join us for worship this morning at 8:45 or 10:30 a.m. (NOTE THE NEW TIME FOR THE SECOND SERVICE!!!) at New Life’s Mission Outpost at 139 Knoch Road in Saxonburg, PA! We’ll be launching our new series: “God’s Design for Singleness, Dating, Marriage and Beyond!” Tonight’s message is titled: “The Single Life!” Hope to see you there!]

In today’s reading the Apostle Paul tells us what happens when we let the Holy Spirit control our lives: we produce the “fruit” of the Spirit. While many call it the “fruits” (plural), as if there are nine distinct fruits produced by the Holy Spirit, Paul’s wording makes it clear that the fruit (singular) of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is great news for us, since if we need patience, for example, all we need to do is call on the Holy Spirit to fill us, and as He does, we will not only gain patience, but also the other eight facets of the fruit of the Spirit as well! I find it interesting that the “acts” of the sinful nature are individual acts, they don’t “work together,” and each one in and of itself is enough to lead to our destruction, while the fruit of the Holy Spirit is collective and each facet works together with all the rest to produce a holy character within us. As you read the passage, pause and reflect on each facet of the fruit and then remember that each facet builds with the others to work amazing transformation in our lives as we let the Holy Spirit control the “battle” between Him and the sinful nature within us.

[I want to remind all of you that our “Next Steps…” consultation with Pastor John Nuzzo starts TODAY! Please, pray for the elders and staff as we meet with Pastor John during the day, and then come out and join us at the Mission Outpost at 7:00 p.m. for worship, and Pastor John’s encouragement in the next steps each of us needs to take to see Jesus keep moving us forward in sharing His new life with the world–one person at a time!]

10 Minutes in Bible Reading

Today’s passage is one of my all-time favorite parables of Jesus. I like it because Jesus calls out the self-righteous Pharisee in each of us. I know we like to be hard on the Pharisees, and they deserve it, but over time it’s always a danger that we who have trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord, welcoming the precious salvation from sin and death that we know we so desperately needed, can become a little (or a lot) self-righteous ourselves. I was talking with someone a while ago who said, “I don’t like to hang around with that person because he isn’t saved. He swears all the time.” I said, “Makes sense that he swears all the time if he isn’t saved.” I never expect an unsaved person to act like Jesus, although many times I’ve been surprised because they do. What surprises (actually it used to surprise me, just about nothing surprises me anymore!) me is that people who say they have trusted Jesus as their Savior and Lord many years ago don’t act like Him at all. The Pharisee in the parable found it easy to feel good about himself because he compared himself to the tax collector standing next to him. The tax collector KNEW he was a sinner, and didn’t deserve God’s mercy, but cried out for it anyway. Jesus tells us the tax collector went away justified and not the Pharisee. Why? Because the tax collector admitted his condition and asked God’s forgiveness! The Pharisee denied his condition by comparing himself to someone who was “worse” than he was. The truth is ALL of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, as we learned when we studied about the “Fall.” We all need redemption as we learned when we studied about redemption. Today’s brief parable is a great reminder that because of the fall, we all need to be redeemed, and that it may be the one who thinks he or she is doing well who actually needs redemption the most!

[Join us for worship this morning at 8:45 or 10:15 a.m. at the Mission Outpost! We’ll be celebrating Palm Sunday, and it’ll be great time to bring a friend!]

Today’s memory passage is one of my all time favorites. While it contains so much that we could emphasize, let me point out three specific aspects: 1) If we are in Christ Jesus we are NEW CREATIONS. I love that the Apostle Paul followed up that statement by saying that the “old has gone, the new has come.” So many people waste so much time focusing on what they did or didn’t do in the past, when Jesus died to pay the penalty for the sins of the past, whether they were sins of omission (what we didn’t do!) or sins of commission (what we did do!). The more we live into the new life Jesus has given us the more powerful our lives will be in reaching others in His name. 2) We are CHRIST’S AMBASSADORS! Isn’t that incredible? As the new people Jesus died to create us to be, we have the amazing work of representing Jesus to the world. An ambassador represents His nation to another nation. In our case, we get to represent the Kingdom of Heaven to the world! There’s no greater job in the world than that, and it isn’t just for pastors, but for every follower of Jesus Christ. The question is never whether you or I Jesus’ ambassadors, but whether we’ll be effective or ineffective ones. 3) NOW is the time of God’s favor. So many folks put of trusting Jesus or serving Him until “later.” G.K. Chesterton once said, “Most people haven’t said, ‘No,’ to Jesus, they’ve said, ‘Not yet,’ and they say it all their lives.” When are we going to live as the new people Jesus died to create, and as His ambassadors in the world? NOW, is the only answer to that question. My prayer for us today is that we will live into who we are: new creations, and Jesus’ ambassadors, so others will experience the reality of Jesus in and through us!

Today’s commandment, the 5th, is the first commandment “with a promise,” as the Apostle Paul put it in Ephesians 6. The promise to the original recipients was if they kept the 5th Commandment, which is: Honor your father and mother; they would “live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” That’s quite a promise isn’t it? Obey one’s parents and live a long life! To be sure, the promise may have held more punch in Moses’ time, considering that disobedience to one’s parents was a capital offense! Even so, it makes sense that honoring one’s parents can be a source of a longer life, especially if one’s parents are believers. I know when I was growing up, my Mom was always giving me advice intended to help me be safe, healthy, and to grow in my walk with Jesus. Most of the time it did those things, so I’m sure the promise attached to the 5th Commandment has application even in cultures where there is no death penalty for disobedience to one’s parents. I want to address a question some of you who are in the same situation as I am may have, “What if my parents have died?” How can I honor them? The short answer to that question is: by living honorably. While our parents are alive we honor them through love and obedience. After they have died, we continue to honor them by living our lives with honor, particularly when it comes to parenting our own children. I learned so many things about the sacrifices my parents made for me, and what they meant, while parenting our children with Nancy. We often knew the right and honorable thing to do, because we had experienced it from our parents. To be sure, there were times when my parents didn’t do the right thing, and even from those I learned how to be a better parent by not doing them with Abby and Emmy. While many of most of the 10 Commandments tell us what we are not to do, number five gives us a strong statement about something we are to do! It’s interesting to note than in Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul follows up his admonition for children to obey their parents in verses 1-3, with an admonition for fathers (the original Greek text makes it clear that Paul’s words were addressed to fathers, and not to parents). Here’s what he wrote: 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4 (NIV) While this isn’t one of the “Big 10,” it’s a great reminder that as parents we need to be sure that our parenting is worthy of being honored!